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It was incomprehensible to him that a man who’d fought against something as barbaric as the decimation at San Vittore Prison could in turn rule an army of slaves without so much as a twitch of inner conflict or a tic of self-loathing.
To me, it’s understandable: Leyers is a man with a sense of duty. Yes, he sympathizes with the prisoners, the Jews,.. but he believes that the end justify the means. Does that make him a bad person? What is bad? Is having a sense of duty bad? After all, duty or sympathy are all part of morality. How do we find the line between duty and sympathy (if such thing even exists)?
Soon, however, he was conflicted. Part of him was appalled that he had basked once more in the general’s praise. Then again, he had been smart and crafty, hadn’t he? He’d certainly outwitted the British pilot, and he rather enjoyed that.
It’s an interesting conundrum. How do you respond to the compliment of a person you hate? I do think we can split the person from the action. Like Oscar Wilde once said, “Art for art’s sake”
“They help wondrously over the course of a lifetime. When you have done men favors, when you look out for others so they can prosper, they owe you. With each favor, you become stronger, more supported. It is a law of nature.”
“Yes, you do,” Leyers said. “It would be surprising if you didn’t hate me for what I’ve had to do today. A part of me hates myself. But I have orders. Winter is coming. My country is under siege. Without this food, my people will starve. So here in Italy, and in your eyes, I’m a criminal. Back home, I’ll be an unsung hero. Good. Evil. It’s all a question of perspective, is it not?”
Echoing what was said about Leyers earlier. But now I think there is a more interesting debate to be had. The sympathy for Jews and sympathy vs his own people.
The fingers, the little fingers waved in Pino’s mind, and the mother of the sick girl, and the father who’d wanted his son saved. They’d gone to Auschwitz just a few weeks before. Are they dead? Poisoned and burned? Or are they slaves retreating toward Berlin?
What a haunting image, especially the whole paragraph where he described the train departing for Auschwitz. This is gonna be in my nightmare for days to come
“Every time before, I had faith in doing the right thing, no matter the danger. But I just . . . couldn’t believe in Anna enough to .
I did this. I could have helped Anna. But I did everything I could to kill her.
